Christ Honored In A Million Ways

"The church is to gather, to pray, to sing,
Preach the gospel, and tarry, till Christ come!"
Said a pompous deacon, when a new thing
Was proposed, not squarely under his thumb.
Spoke up one, who oft heeded the Holy Ghost*,
"What will we do in heaven's endless years?
Just what we do here in each Sunday's host?
Surely, God will permit a change of gears!
We'll do all things as here, plus work and play,
Create art, enjoy life, as each does will;
Here, the church in house need not always stay,
Her Savior's commandments all to fulfill!
We can honor Christ in millions of ways,
Other than gathering, and singing praise!"

*Holy Ghost = Holy Spirit

The local church is one of thousands of branches of the universal church, an institution Jesus established on earth to win people to choose the path of God, teach and train them, send them out to the far reaches of the earth, telling them the good news of the gospel---salvation is available to everyone. No local church is free of squabbling, petty politics, divisive competition for control, and Satanic influences. Rather than being frightened to enter the church to do his tempting, Satan makes church congregations his primary attackees. The church is most surely not a group of homogeneous perfected Christians who do not sin; rather, every member of the church is a sinner; the church is a "hospital" for their care. Many an eager new believer has entered the church expecting to find peace, harmony, and Christlike behaviors only to discover the same or worse backbiting, quarreling cliques he hated in his weekday workplace. Sadly, many have abandoned their pilgrimage because of bickering in the church. The sinfulness found in human nature is not easy to change into the righteousness that God expects.

The Holy Spirit indwells every believer and will guide him in learning to live by the teachings of Christ. What can easily happen to new believers, though, is that they do not recognize the still, small voice of God advising them, choosing instead to follow the loud demands of outsiders, all of whom eventually lead the beginners back into the clutches of sin. If He is repeatedly ignored, His counsel often unfollowed, the Spirit is quenched, becoming quieter and quieter until finally, his host-believer never hears His guidance; He sadly remains silent. Please do not let that happen to you.

Yes, heaven is a place in which all wholesome pursuits will be practiced by those fortunate and wise enough to be there. Plus, it will have none of the petty bickering found among human beings; we will have new imperishable bodies, not bodies of flesh with sinful natures. We can't take with us the pride, ambition, self-centeredness, lust. greed, covetousness, envy, dissentiousness, quarrelsome natures we are saddled with on earth; also, we would have learned to discipline ourselves to forgive others, control our anger, quit holding grudges, and to live as a fit member of the Kingdom of God. We will be called "saints" in heaven; not because we earned the title, but because we started trying to earn it, and God forgave our failures and supplied us with grace to teach us what we failed to learn.